Unity Station: Book 2: The Panic
by SilenceOnMars
Summary: SOS and the gang have landed at last. Now it's time to find their next path. But the team is slowly breaking in front of them, and the decisions are coming too fast for them to handle. With the Elders of Unity Station riding them hard, can they stick together and solve the mystery before it affects things too much and gets beyond all control? AU. Sequel to When it's In Your Hands.
1. Decisions

Hi everybody! Welcome to the sequel to When It's In Your Hands! It is pretty much required that you read the first book before you read the second one or things may be pretty confusing.

Note, please: THE PLAN HAS CHANGED. Yuu Tendo will NOT be coming back. I am sorry but it is just NOT going to work out. Don't cry! Don't hate me! Just bear with! (He's not really dead, it's just a story!)

With that 'happy' note, we can be getting back to the story.

Enjoy!

* * *

Kyouya awakens to dim lights and thin sheets. As the world swims into focus, he can just make out Zayne's voice coming to him.

"...long way."

"No kidding."

The garbled conversation floats in and out of reality until he forces his mind to be quiet a moment and let him think. He sits up, dizzy for a moment, and then grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes to wake himself up.

Zayne notices that he is awake and comes to stand beside him. "It's about time you woke up", he tells him.

"What happened?"

"We've landed at a boarding school. I can't believe the portal worked." Zayne is beaming infectiously, and Kyouya grins back. They've made it. They've really made it.

"Why did I pass out?"

"It happens a lot to travellers", Zayne says. "All that mass running through space and reassembling...it can have a tiring effect."

Kyouya tells himself to stop asking Zayne questions. The answers always make his head hurt.

"You need to get up and eat something. Think you can stand?" Kyouya nods and Zayne helps him up. They walk down the halls together.

The old-school wooden walls of the boarding school are set with big windows, open to the sunlight. Sunlight seemed a thing of the past until now. He marvels: amazing what a little time underground can do to you!

Zayne notices he has stopped in front of a window and comes to join him. Outside the window, on the lawn, high school-aged boys run after a football. Two more boys sit under a tree with notebooks, studying for class.

Here in this corner of the universe, life has gone on as normal. It seems strange and unreal. Zayne taps him. "Kyouya..."

He turns.

"Let's go, OK? It all seems strange right now. But we won't be here long."

We won't be here long? "Why not?"

Zayne shakes his head. "We need to talk to Sabrina. There's a lot to think about right now."

But when they reach the cafeteria, Sabrina isn't there. Tai waves to them cheerily from a table near the wall, where Cythia and Kevin also sit. But there is no sign of the SOS leader.

As they reach the table, Zayne gives Tai a meaningful look. She shakes her head almost imperceptibly. Kyouya is nearly too preoccupied to notice.

Kevin climbs into Cythia's lap to make room for them. Kyouya sits across from him.

"Yoya! Yoya! We beated the aliens all up!" yelled Kevin. "We leaved them all behind! We maked it!"

"I knew we would, kid", Kyouya tells him.

"I knowed it too. Eat da lunch", Kevin tells him, shoving a sandwich into his hands. Kyouya takes it gratefully and it is gone in seconds. Cythia laughs and hands him another one.

"I didn't realise I was so hungry", he says.

"Dimensional travel can have that effect on you. Kevin ate six times that much."

"I'm a little piggy", Kevin says gravely. Cythia shakes her head.

* * *

Late that evening, Zayne takes a long walk, giving himself time to think. He could cut straight across the building, but he takes the long way; even for his enhanced mind, there is a lot to consider.

What lies in their future? Where will they go?

He checks his watch. It is nearly eight. The sun outside is half-hidden by the horizon.

He passes students on their way to late classes or their dorms. Half of them will be up late studying. Through open doorways he can hear the sound of coffee pots starting up, ready to keep the students energised throughout the long night. These dorms are as busy after dark as they are in daylight.

Zayne allows his mind to pick up on the signals of the students' brains, lets himself absorb the life and sound of the dorms, but he knows he is only trying to distract himself. He can feel the gears whirring in the heads of the boys, he can feel the water boiling in the coffee pots, he can hear pencils on paper.

He doesn't know where Sabrina is staying. But he knows where to find her.

Zayne reaches the door to the study hall and walks in. A lone figure stands by the windows, made into a silhouette by the light behind her. His footsteps echo on the stone floor and the study hall seems a place suspended in time; there is light there without a source.

Sabrina turns. He can see that she knew he was coming. She always does. She possesses a sixth sense as a leader that he marvels at.

"I think you already know why I'm here", he says softly.

Of course she knows.

"Tai should be here."

"She's stressed."

"We're all stressed", she snaps, and then turns toward the window, pacing and pulling her hands through her hair. "Zhou Xing woke up."

"That's not why I'm here. You're avoiding the subject", he reminds her softly.

"I don't want to think. Luis is gone, I'm really worried about him. You know how he gets." She is babbling agitatedly.

"Sabrina."

"Not right now, Zayne. Give it a few days!"

"They're going to call us back to Unity Station any time now. We need to figure out what we're going to do once we get there."

"How about we not do anything?" Sabrina whirled. "Let them take care of the others."

"They need our help. Don't you want to be on this case?"

"I don't know. I don't know what to do, all right? Let somebody else handle this. We just saved the last humans and cat on earth. We don't need this."

Zayne is troubled by her attitude. Normally she is so calm.

"We're going to be in trouble with the Elders."

"Give it a few days", she says again. "Let them all wake. Let me think, Zayne. Don't ask me to do this right now."

He senses the agitation coming off of her, like a damp grey tang against his bare forearms, and he turns away. "What about Luis?"

"Let him come back in his own time. He needs time. We all do. Go to bed", she says.

Zayne doesn't think he can sleep tonight.


	2. Wishing

Hahahaha...*sweatdrop* eagle feather seem to be a huge them in my stories...

* * *

Two days later, everybody has awoken, except for Tsubasa. Sabrina keeps to herself and appears only at mealtimes. Luis does not appear at all. Zayne begins to worry about him.

Outside his window, rain drizzles down, soaking the earth and turning it into a fudgey mess. Tai found him tutoring sleepless students and sent him to bed. But he hasn't slept since they got here. It's not that he doesn't want to; his eyes simply will not shut.

So he lies on the bed, thinking.

Then a dark shape looms through the foggy rain outside his window. He senses it more than sees it. Jumping up, alarmed, he hears through the roar of his mind a tapping on the glass.

He forces himself to see with his eyes instead of his brain, and it takes a moment to separate them; and then he sees that it is Luis, sopping wet and scowling. Quickly he throws open the huge window and goes into the bathroom to get a towel.

Luis huddles on his carpet, wrapped in the fluffy white, which looks uncharacteristic with his long black hair and scowling face. He shakes himself with a bearish gruffle and his hair scatters water over the windowpane.

"I'll bet I'm wetter than a fish", he grumbles.

"You were outside in the rain?"

"It caught me walking back from the woods." He huffs like a grizzly. "Just at the right time, too. Everybody likes to pour stuff on me, even the sky."

Zayne laughs. "Where have you been these past few days?"

Luis has a hard time remembering in his human form what happens when he is a bear. "I don't really know. I woke up under the trees."

Zayne nods. He is used to Luis forgetting where he went.

"Sabrina's been worried about you. Why do you have to run off all the time?" Luis stands as Zayne speaks, casting away the towel. A shudder runs down his lean body and he shakes like a dog. Zayne throws his arms up to shield himself from the spray. Luis even smells like fur.

"Because I feel like it", Luis answers after he has thoroughly soaked Zayne's T-shirt. "I need to be on my own sometimes." _Because I feel so trapped in my own body._

Zayne's face is grave. He searches Luis's eyes. Luis throws up a mental wall. _Cabbage, Cabbage, Cabbage._

Zayne frowns. "What are you doing?"

"What are you doing?" Luis bites back. "You know I don't like you in my head, Zayne." They glare at each other for a long moment and then, sensing Luis's frustration, Zayne backs off. You don't provoke an angry bear.

* * *

Madoka finds her way through the school to the infirmary. Outside, the drear drizzle has picked up and sounds a steady beat on the roof above her head. In her hand is a feather.

Tsubasa, the only traveller still deep in a coma, lost a lot back on earth. He lost Yuu. He lost his eagle. She is hoping she can remind him what he still has.

He lies, peaceful as if asleep, on the mattress of the cot. Madoka looks down at him and tears blur her eyes. She hates to see him like this.

Zayne tells them that there is chaos going on in Tsubasa's mind, that he is grieving and that he is broken. Zayne tells them that's why he's asleep. He tells them there is not danger but that if Tsubasa doesn't wake up soon, there could be complications. He does not specify further.

Yet Tsubasa breathes peacefully.

Tubes feed into his arm, giving him nutrients as he sleeps. He can't do it himself. Sometimes he moves in his sleep; sometimes he rolls over and tangles the tubes around his arm and side. It annoys the nurses, but Zayne says it's a good sign.

Madoka lays the feather on his loose palm. After a moment his fingertips twitch and tighten around it, like he knows what it is. He doesn't wake, but he cradles it; somewhere in his dormant mind, he knows it is fragile. A part of him is still with the world. This particular world, that is.

Maybe he'll come back to them soon.


	3. Chapter 3

Hey guys,

This isn't really a chapter - but I just want to let y'all know:

I may start a new book, a prequel/accompaniment, called Stories from Unity Station. It'll probably go up on FictionPress within the next month or six ahahaha -_-'

You can find me on FictionPress as Malluchan.

-Mal


	4. So long, Capri

I've been writing for Zayne a lot; because of his supernatural ability to sense and see, I'm just intrigued by the way he perceives things with his mind instead of his eyes. A bit like synaesthesia probably.

* * *

In the morning Zayne wakes and immediately feels that something is wrong. Instantly he stretches out his mind to the infirmary, and his feet hit the floorboards before he opens his eyes. But the trouble is not with Tsubasa, who still sleeps soundly.

His mind reaches out and zips through the list. Sabrina is fine. Tai is fine, Luis, and Cythia.

The trouble lies with Kyouya.

Zayne stands, stretching his arms over his head, recovering from his moment of panic, for now the alert that woke him is dying down, not as terrible as it seemed in his waking moments. He pulls his coat around his shoulders and slips his feet into his moccasins.

Padding down the hall at this early hour, for it's only 5 a.m. in this dimension, feels the sleepy almost-awareness of waking students and tastes the fresh-bread sensation of seeing sunlight. All around him people walk to breakfast, ready to get on with their day.

He finds Kyouya in the study hall, damp grey worry prickling the hairs on his forearms. Kyouya turns and is startled to find him there.

"Zayne - "

"Tobio is gone", Zayne answers. "I already know. He's not in this building."

"You looked...?"

"Trust me; he isn't here. But he's safe", adds Zayne. Tobio is now connected to his psychic field. If he was in danger, daggers would be ripping at the back of Zayne's mind. He nearly blacked out when Griffin died.

Speaking of connections...one mind that was muted to him before is wakening suddenly, fresh rain. He knows the touch of this mind, soft like balsa wood and focused like a crystal ball.

"Tsubasa is awake", he tells Kyouya. The two of them step side by side to the infirmary.

Tsubasa sits up in bed, gazing at an object in his hand. A single feather. Zayne closes his eyes and feels the fibres of the feather as if they were on his own fingertips, and then the dizzying black smell of coins, loss.

When he opens his eyes again there is a single tear running down from Tsubasa's closed eyelashes; and then he looks up and smiles.

* * *

Tsubasa joins them in the cafeteria for breakfast. All around them are students with their laptops, yellow lemon sharpness, hard work enhanced with buzzing pollinated caffeine.

Zayne shuts his eyes and feels Sabrina approaching the table. She is humming grey contained storminess, swelling muddy rivers. Stressed.

So she, too, knows that Tobio is AWOL. "I can't believe him", she tells Zayne. She knows that he knows that she knows.

"He's like Luis. He needs time to be in the world again. Remember where we just came from", Zayne says. It's not comforting to her at a time like this, but some things you want to hear and some things you need to hear. The rivers overflow.

Sabrina slaps a letter onto the table, white hot electric sparks, mad at Tobio. "I just picked this up from the Unity Station Embassy in the city."

"You just got back? Why were you out so early?" Tai demands.

Zayne felt her, inky indigo shallowness, up all night and sleepless. The rivers were oceans last night.

"I couldn't sleep", she answers simply. "Read it."

Tai takes it and reads it aloud to their small group.

_"Sent to Sabrina Notscha, leader SOS subdivision 101, September 16 at 7 am earth time, Eppaulus 9 16:36 Unity Station time. _Yesterday", Tai adds in clarification.

_"Your squad is required at Unity Station on September 20 earth time, Eppaulus 13 Unity Station time, or earlier if possible. Please do not delay._

_Signed, _

_Emerson Juliet, Elder Supreme; Caephus Danton, Elder Second; Sloane Tykus, Elder Third."_

"It's red-level correspondence", Sabrina says when Tai is finished. "They took it to Emerson. It's certainly serious." Zayne can feel Emerson's psychic fingerprint, black pinstriped clarity, staining the paper in Tai's hand. Most people don't leave such a large fingerprint behind, but Zayne can sense anything that Emerson's touched from miles away. It makes the hair all over his body stand up on high alert.

"Emerson himself handled it, not his secretary", Zayne tells Sabrina. He can feel her straighten. Then her anger bursts, burning his ears severely. He cries out and claps his hands to the sides of his head, but of course, there's nothing there.

Sabrina doesn't show that she is angry. Kevin gives Zayne a weird look, and Zayne glares at Sabrina. "Calm down, you're hurting me!"

"Your brain is so sensitive", mutters Sabrina. Her anger carries the image of Tobio with it, mad that he's gone and left them when it's time for them to go and leave. "He better be back before Eppaulus 13 or we're leaving without him."

"Who better be back?" Cythia asks, but Sabrina leaves. Zayne casts a worried glance after her. She's breaking, and it sends panic shooting like liquid nails through his veins.

"Zayne?" Cythia taps his arm, bringing him back. Her consciousness hits at his mind, freshly-opened pretzels.

He answers her question and then stands up. He needs coffee.

* * *

Two nights later, on September 19th - well, Eppaulus 12, Kyouya reminds himself - he is startled by Zayne coming in. Zayne hands him a folded note.

"Tobio sent this. Don't worry, I didn't read it, but he has a very unique psychic fingerprint. Like a stone goat."

Kyouya doesn't understand Zayne. He opens the note. _Meet me outside_, it says.

He stands, and Zayne tells him, "If you find Tobio, tell him we need him to come back. We can't leave without him."

True to his word, Tobio stands half-hidden at the edge of the field in the dusk, and Kyouya makes his way over. "Where have you been? First Luis and then you", he grumbles. "Do you get how mad Sabrina is?"

"I got the idea she wouldn't be pleased. But I need to talk to you", he says.

"So talk. But walk with me while you do. It's chilly out here."

"No", Tobio says, taking him by surprise. "You see, that's the thing. I'm not going back."

"You're...what?" Kyouya fumbles for a second, thrown off guard by this answer.

"I don't want to leave. I just got here. This is a place with some semblance of normalcy."

"Why? What's here for you to want so badly?"

"No aliens, for one thing", Tobio says, crossing his arms and leaning against a tree. "People. A city. Sunlight. Familiarity."

"You're a blader. Your beyblade won't work here. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I'll find a job. But I'm stopping this before it gets too far. Alien hunting and dimensional travel...that's not the world I came from."

Kyouya laughs harshly. "I don't think you understand, Capri. We're wanted by the interdimensional alliance. They basically called us to court. They'll hunt you down, I'm sure of it."

"Tategami, you know me, and you know I don't just get _hunted down_ that easily." Tobio shakes his head. "You should stay here too. We're good; they'll never find us. Justice? Galaxies? That's not the world I need! I need a place where I know the physics and the language, not some space station! I know where you're going. I followed Sabrina to the Embassy. And I can't go...there."

"Why not?" he persists. "Once this whole mess is cleaned up, you'll be brought back, if you want. It'll be a lot less trouble for you."

Tobio shakes his head again. "Sorry. It freaks me out." He turns away. "I've said my part. I don't see how I've got any more explaining to do, so come with me or don't come after me, Tategami. Either way, I'm not staying here."

"SOS will come after you. You know that", Kyouya calls. "Once they find out what you're doing, they'll never let you leave."

Tobio throws a smirk over his shoulder. "I don't think they'll find out. I know you, and you won't tell."

Kyouya knows he's right. He tries one more time. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into!"

"I think that's you", Tobio says. And then he turns to face Kyouya, five yards away. "So long, Tategami."

"So long, Capri."

Kyouya watches until Tobio disappears behind the trees. "Good luck", he whispers.


	5. Lies and Loss

I apologise in advance for the terrible ending. I probably shouldn't read random webcomics while writing.

* * *

When Kyouya returns to the boarding school, Zayne eyes him but says nothing. Kyouya watches him warily, wondering how much Zayne can sense, and decides he will have to be careful if he is to keep Tobio's location a secret.

Sabrina calls them to meet in the cafeteria. When they arrive, she is pacing before their little cluster of tables. Kyouya notices for the first time how haggard she looks; dark circles underline her eyes and make them seem lighter than they are. Her hair is unwashed and her movements tense and tired.

"Okay. Listen up, please", she says, standing in the centre of the cluster. "I need you all to be packed and ready to leave by tomorrow at about 7 a.m. We'll eat breakfast here and head down to the Embassy to get on our way. Try to sleep as much as you can."

"You're the one who needs sleep", Tai comments quietly.

"Tai, don't...don't push me." Sabrina shakes her head. "Please, sis. We just need to get back home."

Tai watches her sister worriedly, and Cythia puts a hand on her shoulder. Kevin is already asleep in Ryuga's lap, and Kyouya figures it's about time to follow his example.

* * *

Zayne cannot find sleep.

His bare feet knead the carpet as he paces. He reaches out on instinct. When he was little, he would do this when he couldn't sleep; his parents' calm sleeping breaths would cool him down until his eyes closed and he slept at last. Old habits die hard.

Several hallways over he hits that sharp foggy clarity that flows through him like water. Tsubasa. But tonight he feels falling, falling, damp stone and the sharp smell of coins, tears.

More worry fills his head. According to Kyouya, Tsubasa's already been through grief therapy. Zayne moans in distress and claws at his hair, falling down before the window. So much is going wrong.

They got off that forsaken sphere, but that by no means ended their problems. Sabrina is breaking. Tsubasa is grieving. Tobio is gone.

_Prime, prime, prime._ His mind goes through prime numbers randomly. _2, 3, 5, 7, 11. _

101.

That's their team's number. 101. Prime. Unbeatable; unbreakable. You can't divide a prime number. But something has.

* * *

In the morning Tsubasa wakes before the alarm. He has slept in his clothes, on top of the bedspread. _Well, that's new._

He stands. All his things are packed up. World-weariness weighs on his shoulders. He's so tired.

Tsubasa rummages through his duffel bag until he finds a hairbrush. He stands in front of the mirror and brushes his hair. It has always had a calming effect on him. Others might laugh, but it works; he knows from experience.

Strand over strand, he braids it back and clasps it at the bottom. Then a memory overtakes him...Yuu, playing with the clip, slipping it over his hand like a bracelet and demanding to know why Tsubasa didn't cut his hair or put it back 'properly'. Stung, he yanks the clip out and replaces it with an elastic. He leaves the clip in his bag and heads to the cafeteria.

He doesn't want to go.

Tsubasa hates travelling through the portal; he learned this by experience. Unity Station is in another dimension, so he knows they'll have to go through the portal to get there.

But where else will he go? There's nothing here for him. At least if he stays with 101, he'll have some familiar faces.

He touches the beyblade case on his arm, and then the feather on the string around his neck. He made the necklace last night when he couldn't sleep, so he can remember Eagle. He remembers, all right.

And remembering hurts.

Sabrina paces the narrow lobby, her hair practically steaming. She looks like she's about to kill something. "You're a little early", she greets him, from behind gritted teeth.

"Sorry."

"Did you eat already?"

"I'm not hungry", he tells her quietly. She frowns. "You need to eat something. If you travel without eating, you could get sick."

Tsubasa does not move. Sabrina sighs and shakes her head. "I have other things to worry about", she murmurs.

Zayne enters. "Why are you both up so early?" Sabrina demands. Zayne gives her a flat look, and something unsaid passes between them. "Okay, fine", Sabrina relents. "I'm sorry."

"I don't really know what just happened", Tsubasa says.

"Sabrina knows that stress wakes me up", Zayne explains.

"It's not like I can help it", says Sabrina. Another look. Tsubasa doesn't ask this time. Instead, he asks, "Why are you so stressed?"

It is now his turn to get a Look. Then Sabrina softened. "I forgot you haven't really been around. Tobio's still not back. Kyouya told him to come back but he never did. We're going to have to go looking for him."

Kyouya suddenly appears, as if out of nowhere. Or maybe Tsubasa just doesn't care enough anymore to register when another person walks into the room.

"Actually, uh, Tobio took a plane", says Kyouya. "A, a plane to, to a really far place, and he needs a vacation, so he's not coming back." This all rushes out of him in a huge torrent of words. Zayne cringes as the metallic, buttery taste of a lie hits him full in the face.

Sabrina now gives Kyouya a Look. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, er, that's the truth. I got there too late and he, he had already left, and there was this letter, see, in a tree. And it had, like, flight...schedules and, stuff on it."

"Oh really. How'd he do it without papers?"

"He brought his papers. For real", Kyouya insisted.

"They don't work in this dimension", said Sabrina. "I think you're lying."

"No, what I mean is, he got them...switched, and everything, you know, at the, the Papers, the, uh, the Papers...Switching...Store."

"Kyouya? Really? Can I see the papers?"

"I burned them", Kyouya blurted.

"You burned them."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It was, it was really, really cold last night, so I, uh...I made a fire. In my room. I burned up some textbooks, and the papers."

"There is no fireplace in your room."

"I...built one, with the, uh, with the bedframe."

"Can you show me?"

"No. I burned that too, because, because I didn't have any wood."

Sabrina shakes her head. "You're lying. We need to go find Tobio."

"His plane, it crashed. In the sea", Kyouya said desperately. Sabrina squinted. "What?"

"He's dead now."

"No, Zayne would feel it if he were dead. STOP MESSING AROUND! WE NEED TO FIND HIM!" Sabrina was only about an inch away from shaking Kyouya like a soda bottle in the hands of an ignorant child.

"I'M NOT MESSING AROUND", Kyouya said, matching her in volume. A nearby girl squeaked and fled the scene.

"So where did he fly to, then!?"

"Duchcuezaelea!"

"Duchcuezaelea is sixteen dimensions over!"

"Yeah, the plane flew through a portal on accident - "

"And then drowned in the sea - "

"Yes! Yes, that's exactly what happened!"

Sabrina stands for a moment, soaked in rage so potent that even Tsubasa backs away, which is pretty amazing because he has no emotions right now.

"Fine", Sabrina says evenly. "If that's the case, we're leaving without him. I don't know what game you're trying to play, Kyouya, but I quit. It is time to be serious here and it is time to leave. We gave him 3 days and he's still gone, and I'm not keeping Aine Emerson waiting."

She turns to the small crowd of people around her. "Go eat", she says heavily. Zayne lingers for a second, worried, but she shoots him the hottest point of rage she can muster and he shrieks and runs away, burnt right in the heart by that smouldering poker.

Sabrina's rage tastes like pineapples.


	6. Arrival

Well, it's fiiiiiiiinally time to transition over from Third Earth to Unity Station! YESS! I've been waiting for this day since last year. Unity Station has been established in my head since months and months ago...

In reference to what Z says later in the chapter, Clorox dimensions are called as such because they are _bleached of all colour_. Get it!? Ahahahahaha...okay, sorry.

I don't own Clorox bleach, by the way.

* * *

Kyouya stands once again before the glowing portal, somewhat apprehensive despite the safety he knows they have here. This portal remains in the Embassy for Unity-approved travel back and forth, such as a summon from the Elders. Yet the same fear overtakes him as before: the terror of being cut in half and never again seeing light.

Sabrina steps nonchalantly through the portal. She vanishes without a sign of problem. After her step Tai, then Cythia; Luis, then Zayne; and finally Mal. Unconsciously they have gone in order of their rank on the team. Leader, second-in-command, interrogator, guardian, scientist, secretary. Briefly Kyouya wonders when Griffin would have stepped through, had he survived.

He and Ryuga exchange a look before stepping through at the same time, Kevin between them.

Unlike the last time he travelled this way - was it only a few days ago? - Kyouya keeps his eyes open, this time not braced for annihilation. He sees everything and nothing at the same time. He is everywhere and nowhere. He is everyone and nobody. His mass is concentrated into a single point immeasurable by inches or feet, shooting through a space that is all-dimensional and paradoxical: existent and yet nonexistent. And at the same time he has no mass.

Is space/non-space flashing by in a torrent of colours? Or is he blind? Can he hear everything at the same time? Or is he deaf? Is he moving at an immeasurable speed? Or is he suspended in space/non-space? Does he even exist?

It is mind-boggling. Kyouya thinks that if he were trapped here forever, his mind would become separated from his body and then he would go crazy, if he were even still alive.

And then his skin (if he still has skin) prickles like his whole body is numb, and alive at the same time; he guesses this must be what it's like to be born.

Grey walls, grey floor, odd humming sound behind him; he looks around and finds that he has landed, if he was ever airborne to begin with. For a moment he isn't sure if that moment, or hour, or millennium, actually just happened to him.

Across the room stand Sabrina and the rest of 101, fully materialised. He walks across to join them on shaky legs and wonders if his kneecaps are still there, or just nonexistent in the space between.

After only a moment, Tsubasa materialises in front of the portal, his eyes squeezed shut as tight as they can go. He doesn't move. And then Mildred's form appears behind him; she bumps into him and he stumbles several yards before regaining his balance.

Madoka and Hikaru arrive side by side, Zhou Xing directly behind them with Kenta. Last come Ryuga and Kevin. Kyouya is a bit puzzled at this; didn't they come in with him?

Ryuga looks confused too; the girls look relieved and Tsubasa just looks worn out.

"This is Unity Station", sighs Sabrina. "We're home."

_We're not home_, thinks Kyouya. But he says nothing.

"We in a rocket chip?" asked Kevin, wide-eyed.

"Something like that", Zayne tells him, letting him climb on his back.

As Kyouya walks through the station, he notices that there are no windows. When asked the reason for this, Zayne explains that they're actually miles below the surface of the planet that acts as the base for the Unity; there is nothing to see.

Doors lie open on all sides of them; most hold glowing portals. As Kyouya walks past, he can see people vanishing and appearing through them. Eventually the grey hallways give way to light blue ones. The shift in colour is subtle, but it's there. On the ceiling, where the two colours bleed into one another, a sign hangs: 'SANCTION B8-190'. Sabrina keeps walking. The hallways here slant upwards slightly. It all reminds Kyouya very much of a parking garage.

"How big is this place?" he asks.

"Unity Station, you mean? - well, the planet is about 5 times the size of earth, with levels going down all the way to the core, which is roughly half the size of earth; then there are more levels above the surface."

"You mean the station takes up the entire PLANET?"

"Well, yes. With all the dimensions in the Unity and all the things we have to keep track of, any smaller and we'd be intensely crammed. They're building upwards all the time as it is."

Kyouya goes silent with awe.

"Huge ninormous rocket chip", Kevin whispers, gazing wide-eyed all around as if this hallway alone can reveal to him the wonders of this immense place. Zayne continues.

"This dimension was optimal because, according to our current knowledge, Tylar-1, or Unity Station, is the only planet in this space system. There isn't even a sun or moon adjoining to it. As far as we can tell, the space this dimension occupies contains only about a hundred stars. When you consider that this dimension is about as large as the Milky Way Galaxy on Second Earth's dimension, that's pretty few.

"Not all dimensions operate on a spacial system, of course", he goes on. "We stopped calling them solar systems a long time ago because Tylar-1 has no sun anyways. Some dimensions are just empty white space that go on and on forever. The few colonies there never find each other because of the unending space. It would take lightyears for them to reach each other. We didn't build Unity Station on one of those because if you didn't have the exact in-dimension coordinates, you'd be lost forever, especially if you walked out of sight of your portal. And due to the circumstances, there are no coordinates on Clorox dimensions because you can't measure the space they encompass. They're like a Mandelbrot set. The further in you go, the larger it gets."

Kevin is more interested in the 'rocket chip'.

Eventually Sabrina comes to a stop. Kyouya looks around and finds that the winding hallway branches off on either side in front of a long row of elevators.

"Eene Sloane will be waiting for us at the top", Sabrina says. These are the first words she's spoken since before they left. Kyouya makes a valiant effort to remember who Sloane is; oh, yes. He is the...third elder? Something like that?

101 quickly commandeers the first empty elevator, but Zayne isn't fast enough; he slams painfully into the closing doors. "Augh", he mutters, rubbing his abused freckled face.

"The doors shut, like, half a minute before you walked into them", Zhou Xing remarks confusedly.

"Everyone's upset. Can't see half a foot in front of my face what with all the tension floating around", he mutters crankily.

He smacks into the closed doors of the second elevator as well, filled with all the other earthlings but too crammed for Kyouya to fit. Kyouya leads him safely into the next elevator so he doesn't smack into anything else.

At the top 101 and the rest wait for them. At first Kyouya doesn't notice the woman standing with them because he's too dizzy from the elevator's insane speed; then he does a double take.

Ahahahaha. He thought Sloane was a boy's name. But apparently it's a girl's name.

Sloane, Elder Third, is tall and slenderly built. Her dusky hair seems almost purple in the light, pulled back imposingly. She towers above him.

Then she smiles, and all the scariness goes away.

"One of your crew is travel-sick", she says in a deep voice. "You'll have to rest a few days before the board meeting." It is then that Kyouya notices that Tsubasa is no longer among them.

"Told him to eat something", mutters Sabrina spitefully as they follow Sloane.


End file.
